1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to apoptosis inducers, anticancer drugs and carcinostatic drugs which are usable as medicines. It further provides a method for inducing apoptosis which is useful in, for example, clarifying the mechanism of apoptosis and screening apoptosis induction inhibitors. Furthermore, it provides purified sulfated-fucose-containing polysaccharides and degradation products thereof and a sulfated-fucose-containing polysaccharide degrading enzyme which is useful in producing sulfated-fucose-containing polysaccharide degradation products and studying the structures thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, the style of apoptosis (self-destructive cell death or suicidal cell death) has attracted attention regarding the death of cell tissues.
It is considered that apoptosis is the death inherently programmed in genes, different from necrosis meaning pathological cell death. Namely, some external or internal factors trigger the activation of genes programming apoptosis. On the basis of this genes, a programmed death gene protein is subsequently biosynthesized and decomposed the cells per se, thus causing death.
It is highly meaningful to express the apoptosis in a desired tissue or cells, if possible, since unnecessary or pathogenic cells can be spontaneously eliminated from the living body thereby.
The present invention aims at developing highly safe compounds having effects of inducing apoptosis and thus providing apoptosis inducers, anticancer drugs and carcinostatic drugs containing these compounds and a method for inducing apoptosis by using these compounds as the active ingredient. The present invention further aims at providing an enzyme capable of degrading the compounds of the present invention which is useful in the production of the degradation products of these compounds.